


the seas of cobalt souls

by emassrelayz



Series: Good Liars (but they get angry, too) [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/F, Multi, slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-06-26 05:16:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19761355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emassrelayz/pseuds/emassrelayz
Summary: Marion Lavorre cared about Jester more than anything else in the world. So moving to Zadash after the Lord Sharp accident was a decision she made wholeheartedly.Jester's single wish was to be able to have family trips with her mom, and her mom not being afraid to be out in public. Even if she knew it was hard for her, feeling how hard her mom tried made her feel like she couldn't possibly have been more loved.And for Beauregard, she didn't really enjoy staying at the Cobalt Soul, but the other option wasn't really an option, and family was a bad morning hungover afterthought. Just as pleasant as throwing up your soul in alcohol behind the Leaky Tap.





	1. Wall climb

Wide wall high windows surrounded the comfort of the Lavorres' new living room, the light exposure embracing the sky blue wallpaper walls with an indirect sun. Blude moved the long sofa into place and Jester crashed on it.

“Blude, this is taking so long and my sketchbook is in my stuff.”

“I’m sorry, Jester, we’re almost done.”

She sighed. Marion Lavorre checked the last case unloaded from the chariots, her eyes scanning the surroundings with the familiar hint of anxiety. 

“Mom,” Jester said, and sank more into the sofa. “Where is my sketchbook?”

Marion turned to her and smiled, her hands tight around her cloak. That same cloak she had once used to cover a younger Jester asleep on the sofa of the Lavish Chateau.

“My dear, if you help Blude bring your things upstairs you can have your sketchbook and take a look at your new room, what do you say?”

Jester stood up, her smile hurting her own face. “I’ll do that.”

Walking back and forth with Blude for the next hour, free to be just outside, no worry of being seen as some kind of intrusion into her mother’s work. Her mom looked around nervous, keeping her back near either a wall or the chariot or Blude when he was there. But she was the reason why they were in Zadash. Probably for good. That, and probably the fact that it was either moving or Jester being executed by Lord Sharp. But at the very least, the Traveller was proud of her.

“So, mom,” Jester said, and picked up another box. “Don’t stay outside too much, I can handle it.”

Marion twisted the hem of the cloak in her hands. “Are you sure?”

“Of course, mom, leave it to us,” Jester lifted the box for emphasis. “And besides: Blude and me are very strong.”

Marion smiled and her shoulders sagged in relaxation. “That you are, my little sapphire.”

Through the glass of her window, the Tri-Spire reached into the cloudy sky, arms of brick and metal and wood of a city that thrived with trade and knowledge. The “snooty district”, as Jester liked to call it, seemed less of a breathtaking scenery and more of a looming presence, the eye of the Empire now closer to her more than it had ever been. That and the constant clouds and humidity made her miss Nicodranas. The warmth. The ocean. The Chateau. But she couldn’t say she missed her mother’s now ex-clients.

After the Sharp “incident”, as her mother called it, she just packed, took her daughter, Blude and sold the Chateau, taking with her not only her precious jewel but also her reputation. The new house and future brother needed a name - mom shut down The Best Lay Ever with a laugh and a hug - but their papers were regular and new, as new as Marion’s decision to be just the manager of the new business. Too much secrecy and commitment, she had said.

“Jester, dear, come please?” her mom called from somewhere in the house.

“Coming!” she shouted.

Her mom was bent over a chest in her new room, pulling out clothes and other belongings on the bed orderly.

“Your sketchbook was here,” the woman handed her the notebook. “Must have put it in my things without noticing. Next time, don’t fall asleep on my bed while drawing.”

“Thank you, mom,” Jester held the notebook in her arms. “The towers are very pretty from here.”

“Oh, indeed,” Marion smiled at her and folded a dress. “Would you like to go for a walk and look around tomorrow?”

The smile that broke on her face threatened to crack her cheeks in half.

“Me and you? Outside?”

Marion’s eyes half disappeared in the smile that mirrored her daughters. “Yes, me and you. Outside.”

“Oh my gosh, mom, let’s go!” Jester jumped towards her and held her hands. “We can go look for new paints, and then we can go walk around and stare up the Archives of the Cobalt Soul - I hear they’re _huge_ \- and we can-”

Marion laughed and pur her hands on Jester’s shoulders. “We will do and see whatever you want, my little sapphire. I promise.”

* * *

“Beauregard, you’re _sloppy_ ,” Dairon backflipped and charged towards Beau, whose arms didn’t parry in time. She found herself on the ground, staring up at the bald monk, who had her open hand pointed towards her like a threatening blade. It was probably almost as sharp, too.

Beau groaned. “I am _trying_.”

“Try harder,” Dairon stepped back and dropped her stance. “One day you’ll have to save your own life. What we do in here is dangerous, you can do better.”

“I said I am _trying_.” Beau stood up and launched herself with her fist reared back. Dairon ducked and next thing Beau knew was the pain behind her neck and her cheek on the ground behind her master. Dairon dusted off her elbow and crossed her arms.

“Well, I suppose that’s enough not trying for today.”

Beau huffed and coughed when the dust she huffed off billowed under her nose. Dairon’s legs walked towards her and a hand entered her vision. Beau took it and stood up. Dairon gave her a small smile.

“It doesn’t have to be a _task_ , Beauregard Lionett.”

“For all intents and purposes looks and _feels_ like a task to me,” Beau said and rubbed her painful neck.

“New perspective: you can do this to reach your end,” Dairon’s punch stopped in front of her nose. “Or you can do _better_ and maybe even avoid fighting altogether. But sometimes you can’t avoid it, so you need to learn.”

“I’m plenty good with kicking ass and taking names, thank you very much,” Beau said and grabbed a glass of water from the table near the door of the training room.

“I’m sure,” Dairon shook her head. “But be mindful of why you’re here.”

Beau didn’t have to be reminded at all.

“See you tomorrow, Beauregard.”

“Bye.”

And just like that, Dairon was out of the room.

Walking back to her bedroom with sour muscles and bruises was in no way less normal than being asked to escort somebody through the library - unless that someone was a homeless man in a dirty coat who happened to not have seen a bath in months - but every time she hit the bed after a day of training made her feel like that was the best bed she had slept on. Which was, technically, not wrong. She had slept in much worse places, her own house’s bedroom included. It was hard to sleep when the old man’s favorite hobby was to make your life a living hell.

Her eyes shot open as a crashing sound came from outside the window of the room. Stupid market chaos.

She yawned, stood up and walked towards it and opened it. The Zadash’s chaos was, like every single afternoon, winding down after another day of activity, and welcoming the evening strolls, the dating couples, the family trips, the street artists. That was probably one of the few things that kept her from leaving the library outright: the small world under her window. And Dairon, when she wasn’t being a hard ass.

But nothing stopped her from crawling down the window. Dairon had managed to get the acrobatic climbing techniques to stick, at the very list. And she really wanted a candied apple from down the street.

She pulled her legs up the open window and lowered her body to hang on the edge of the marble, her feet on the now familiar bricks that jutted out of the wall. She made her way down through crevices, protrusions and banner flags, and jumped down on her two feet. And right in front of a blue tiefling who, quite literally, fell on her back from the surprise.

“Ah, shit man, sorry, I-"

The blue tiefling had short hair, also blue, and small horns at the top of her head. Her blue gown rested long and messy on her legs, the green mantle hiding the top of the otherwise white and brown leather dress. And Beau looked away.

“Oh no, dear, are you alright?” A red skinned tiefling kneeled next to the younger tiefling and put a hand on her shoulder. Then she pierced Beau with bright scarlet eyes. “Where did you even come from?”

“Oh, uh, sorry I was just trying to go for a walk?”

The blue tiefling blinked and looked up at the wall, and then back at Beau. And then she - _smiled_?

“Did you just climb down the _wall_?”

“Uhm-”

“That’s so cool!”

The red tiefling helped the blue girl up. “Jester, dear, she just fell on you-”

“Mom, I’m fine, it’s okay,” Jester said, and dusted her gown off. Then she looked at Beau. “How did you do that?”

Beau was not good with people. Like, in general. Unless she had to punch them or call somebody “asshole”. So this girl, asking to see her doing something she didn’t think was that big of a deal, especially after Beau had literally made her fall to the ground was a concept Beau struggled to put together. 

“Dude, I just crashed on you, what the fuck.”

Jester’s mother walked between Jester and Beau. “You owe my daughter an apology.”

Beau took a step backward. “Yes, ma’am, I’m sorry. Can I go now?”

“But you need to show me how you did that,” Jester said, walking to her mother’s side.

“Maybe another time,” Beau gave an awkward hand wave and booked it.

What compelled her to walk away, beside being the direct cause of an accident, was the fact that she couldn’t get over how pretty the blue tiefling girl looked. So candied apple run became a visit to the nearest brothel. Nothing a night of forgetting couldn’t fix. But that night, and she laid down in a bed of sinful pleasures, Dairon in her dreams told her that climbing walls was beneath a monk of the Cobalt Soul.

* * *

Two nights later, Jester had a whole new array of paints, and the first thing she wanted to draw was sitting in front of her in the living room, near the fireplace.

Marion Lavorre liked to knit. She didn’t get to do it often, Jester recalled, but she had been able to make Jester a whole new - blue - scarf complete with her own initials. Her ruby skin looked smooth, comfortable, almost younger than what Jester remembered. When Blude brought her breakfast in the bedroom that morning, he was enjoying the comfort of a new white shirt. “It’s from the silk makers of the place,” he said, and smoothed it down with his hand.

The implicit air of - change? that permeated around them after the move had been done was at times disorienting. But seeing her mother and Blude _glow_ with relax and the excitement of new beginnings was enough to overwhelm Jester and give her a reason to want to draw both even more.

“What’s the matter, sapphire?” Her mother asked. Jester didn’t realize she had been staring.

“Oh, you know,” she said, and dipped her brush in a deep ruby paint. “It just feels different, is all.”

“What does?”

“Home.”

Marion Lavorre smiled and stood from her chair, her knitting work on the seat. She walked towards Jester and sat beside her. “Do you miss Nicodranas?”

“Oh no, mom, I love it here.”

“I’m glad,” she said. “Something wrong?”

“You and Blude look _different_.”

Her mother leaned her head on the side, curious. “Different how?”

“Just different,” Jester put down the brush. “Happier.”

The water in the glass of brushes shivered. Shook. Swang out of the glass. Everything shook. Jester met her mother’s gaze, who looked confused and alarmed. The canvas in front of her fell, the glass of wine near the fireplace chair fell on the ground and broke, the wine bleeding into the carpet.

“Blude!” Her mother called. “Blude, where are you?”

“Miss Lavorre, I’m here,” Blude entered the room from the second door in the back. “There’s chaos in the city.”

“Chaos?” Jester asked, her arm close to her mother’s.

“A tower fell.”

* * *

Dairon left. After the tower attack, everyone looked on edge at the Archives. Zeenoth kept displacing books about Xhorhas, Beau guessed after he had consulted them. Strange coping mechanisms. Which she wished she had, since after Dairon had left, she had been assigned more library duty, and after that hall duty, and after that-

“Beauregard, are you done with training already?” Jennah asked, as she walked past her in the corridor to the hall.

Beau bit on her tongue. “Yeah, Tubo sent me away early. Said I did really well?”

“Oh, I see. Do you have time to go get some new robes at Basic Clothing Wears’? It’s for the new disciples coming in today.” She gave her a bag of coins.

Beau nodded and tugged the bag of coins to her belt and exited the building.

She walked a few steps and turned the corner of the building into a narrow alley. She leaned to the wall and slid down to the ground. She unwrapped her left boot and hissed when the damp cloth pulled on her wound.

“Tubo’s gonna be _thrilled_ ,” she muttered, and hissed when she pulled more at the cloth.

The evening before Beau had climbed down the window - again - and off to the brothel. When she came back right before dawn, she had climbed back up but slipped on one of the flag banners. One of the pointy ones that she kept reminding herself not to fall off of. Once she had come up into the room, she had used one of her old robe sashes to wrap the wound and used some of the pure alcohol on it - the alcohol she stole from the kitchen a few nights back.

Earlier that day during training, Tubo had noticed and finished training early, urging her to get it checked by a cleric. And Beau, being herself, did none of those things. And Beau, being herself, now regretted it.

“Are you okay, girl?” A low deep voice asked from the corner of the alley.

A huge minotaur in a white expensive looking shirt and pants looked at her, his look one of curiosity and his voice not doing much to hide worry.

“I’m cool, thanks.”

“I can call for help.”

Beau huffed. “I said I’m okay.”

The minotaur fell silent and looked at her for another couple seconds, and then turned away into the main street. Beau rolled her eyes and pulled the edge of the cloth, leaned in to look into the wound. It hurt, red and bloated looking.

“Oh no, are you hurt?”

Beau looked at the end of the alley, where now stood the minotaur from before and - the blue tiefling from earlier that week?

"Wha-”

“Let me help,” the blue tiefling - Jester, that’s her name, yes - walked the alley towards her and kneeled down in front of her.

“Hey friend, listen, I’m fine, I’m just gonna go ask a cleric nearby.”

Jester grinned. “Technically I am a _cleric_ , so.”

“Oh.”

Jester’s grin grew wider and she looked down at the leg. The grin disappeared.

“Oh my gosh, does that hurt?”

Beau shook her head, but hissed when Jester tugged on the cloth.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, let me just,” and Jester cupped her hands around the calf.

A soft light green glow grew between the girl’s hands in the shape of the wound. Beau recoiled at the unfamiliar, unexpected warmth of it. Cleric magic was still hard to wrap her head around after years spent around them.

The wound sizzled, the skin around the cut grew bubbly and pulled around the edges until the two sides touched and melted together. The patch of bloody skin now matching the rest of her body, no wound to be found.

“Oh, wow,” was all Beau could say.

Jester sat in front of her, legs crossed. “Better?”

“I, uh - yeah.”

“Jester, your mother is probably wondering where you are.” The minotaur walked closer to them.

Jester nodded and stood up, and extended a hand to Beau. Beau blinked and just stood up, not taking it.

“Uh, thanks, I guess.”

Jester clapped her hands together and put them behind her back, smiling at Beau. And Beau was at a loss for words.

“You’re welcome,” she took a step back. “I’m Jester.”

Beau looked at her, at the minotaur, and back at the blue tiefling. What the hell?

“Beau.”

“Jester,” said the minotaur.

“ _Coming_ ,” Jester huffed. “Nice to meet you, Beau. 

And she ran out of the alley, walking away with the minotaur by her side.

Discomfort and worthlessness sank deep in Beau's stomach as the leg, empty of pain, pushed her up from the ground. It was just a matter of time until she got hurt again and screwed up the blue tiefling's kindness.


	2. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning: chapter was just roughly edited, so bear with me please.
> 
> Enjoy!

_Beau poked at her food in the plate, her father glaring at her from the other side of the table, and her mother alternated a mouthful with a stare between the two of them._

_Beau rolled her broccoli for the tenth time and then put the fork down. She stood up from the seat, the chair screeching against the wooden floor._

_“I’m going to bed.”_

_Her mom turned towards her. “But you’ve barely eaten your dinner, dear.”_

_“Let her go,” her dad grumbled, “that’ll give her time to think about acting like the adult she’s supposed to be.”_

_Beau’s head snapped towards her father. “At least I’m fucking better than you.”_

_Her father stood upright, the chair fell on the ground. He stepped around the table._

_“Don’t you dare talk to your father like that,” he said, a finger pointed at her._

_“What father?” Beau asked._

_Her father charged towards her and she ran to the stairs and to her bedroom. Beau locked the door behind her and fell face first into her bed._

_“Beauregard Lionett, open the door.”_

_Beau pulled the pillow over her head and on her ears._

_“Beauregard,_ open _the door right now, it’s an order,”_

_“I said I’m not going, leave me the fuck alone,” she shouted from under the pillow._

_The door trembled from her father’s banging. “You are_ going _to Zadash next week, I won’t let you fuck around with my business any further, you hear me?”_

_“I don’t fucking like the shit you make anyway!”_

  
  
  
  


* * *

The training room echoed with Beau and Tubo’s exhausted panting, as Tubo reached for Beau’s hand. She grabbed it and stood up.

“You’re improving, Beauregard.”

Beau nodded and jumped on the spot, circling her aching shoulders. “Next round?”

“Oh not today, sorry,” Tubo took a waterskin and drank from it, then said, “I have to meet Zeenoth about some new tome deliveries at the Library.”

“Any _fun_ reading I can get into?”

Tubo gave her a suspicious look. “Depends on what’s your use of _fun_ here.”

“Damn, Tubo, sometimes you should have some _fun_.”

If she wasn’t paying attention, she would have missed the imperceptible smirked. “Who says I don’t?”

“Oh wow, too much fucking information.”

“You asked for it.”

Beau shook her head and after exchanging the waterskin a couple times over comments of the last round, she left the training room.

Two of the new disciples walked by her on the corridor, one of them giving her a look and whispering something in their companion’s ear. Beau ignored them and walked towards the hall.

“Hey, Beauregard,” Jennah called from her from near the door. Where she stood alongside the filthy man in a long coat from the other week. She knew where this was going.

“Do I need to escort him?”

Jenna gave her an apologetic smile. “Yes, please, I have to run some errands for the Grand Master.”

Beau rolled her eyes. “What’s up with everyone and the Grand Master today?”

“Oh, apparently some members of the Academy are coming?”

“The Academy?” asked the man, her eyes wandering.

Jennah kept her attention on Beau. “There’s a meeting between disciples of the Archives and students of the Soltryce Academy. The empire thinks that it’s _good training_ for the students. I guess it might be about the war at the border.”

Oh right, the war at the border. After the tower almost fell in the city center, the Empire had thrown itself on the offensive against the Kreen Dynasty. Whatever had happened back then, it seemed that the Empire blamed on the denizens beyond the boundaries in Xhorhas. Or something.

“Sorry for wasting your time, I really need to go,” said the man in a hurry. “Maybe I’ll come back another time.”

“Oh, please, it’s fine, Beauregard here can take you-”

“It’s _fine_ ,” the man stressed, and walked out before anyone could say anything else.

Jennah blinked and then turned towards Beau with a confused expression. “You’d think I’d be used to the type of people that attend this place.”

Blace looked at the back of the man walking away through the open door. She had _no_ idea.

  
  
  
  


* * *

Living in a new house came with a bunch of weird adjustments: embracing the familiarity of an unfamiliar place that you technically called home, the warmth inside four walls that had not been yours until not too long ago, and the fact that her mother was just sitting asleep in front of a fireplace in a large dim-lit living room instead of her chambers back at the Chateau.

And Jester loved that more than anything else.

But one thing that still felt very familiar was that Jester pretty much had no friends. The times she and her mother had walked around and just enjoyed learning about the city made Jester realize just how many people of her age were there, either because that was their hometown or because they had moved there for work. And she knew no one at all, but they all knew at least _someone_.

And she didn’t think the tawny skinned girl with the undercut and in blue robes classified as one. The “punk from the library”, as her mom had called her. Later Jester had figured out that was because those were the robe colors of the Archives of the Cobalt Soul, and yet she didn’t think one of their monks would just drop down from a wall and make her fall on her back. Nor did she think that she was going to have to heal one in a narrow alley while said monk pretended - poorly - she wasn’t feeling any pain.

She stepped on her bare feet on the carpet towards the fire, careful not to wake her mother up. Even if she _really_ wanted to. She would have asked her if she could consider someone who she had helped during a bad time a friend. And then her mother would have asked who it was and she would have had to answer “oh, just the girl you call a rude punk”. Probably not a good idea.

Jester sighed. Her mother was sound asleep, her arms resting in her lap and her head on the side of the couch, one half knitted green sock in her arms. Jester took the folded blanket from the sofa and draped it over her mother’s lap, and leaned down for a kiss on the cheek.

“Goodnight, mama,” and she walked out of the living room and into the kitchen.

Bluude sat at the table, his giant hands around an apple, the knife moving beneath the skin and around the fruit. He looked up and gave her a small smile.

“Jester, what are you doing up so late?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” she said and sat across from him. “Unlike mom.”

Bluude chuckled. “Yeah, your mother has been very busy settling the last things for the opening of the tavern. That and also her trying to fight her agoraphobia, as usual.”

“Yeah, she seems to be doing better. She fell asleep in the living room, I let her take a nap.”

“If the nap evolves into deep slumber, she’ll have a hell of a headache tomorrow.”

Jester shrugged, and then grinned at him. “She’s slept in much worse conditions, I’m _sure_.”

“ _Jester_.”

“What? It’s true,” she laughed. “But anyway, I wanted to ask you something.”

Bluude cut the apple in half and then in quarters. He started to take out the seeds. “What do you need?”

“So, I know mom said that I shouldn’t go out at night-”

“Jester, no.”

Jester stood up and walked to Bluude’s side. “Please, you can come with me, just this once. Please? Tomorrow?”

Bluude put a slice of apple in his mouth and chewed while looking at her. And he chewed. And he chewed, and his eyes squinted in what Jester guessed to be thoughtfulness or skepticism.

He swallowed. “Just this once.”

Jester threw her hands around his neck. “Thank you, Bluude, thank you, I promise you won’t regret it!”

Bluude huffed with his nose. “I’ve heard that before.”

  
  
  
  


* * *

“Apparently she’s here because they’re making her do it.”

“Really? Is that even allowed?”

“I don’t know, but she looks all kinds of not to be messed with.”

“Shut up, she’ll hear you.”

Beau let go of a long breath and snapped her book closed. Dumb and Dumber - that’s what she had named the new disciples - jumped on the spot and turned the corner of the aisle, away from her.

Beau held the bridge of her nose and put the book back on the shelf. Reading _Stories about Healers_ wasn’t the best way to do when all you wanted to do was punch people’s noses into their skulls. Tubo probably wouldn’t have approved, but maybe Dairon would have. But she wasn’t here. Gods knew where Dairon even was, putting her life at risk. Just another person with different priorities than Beau thought, Or just Beau being paranoid over abandonment, but she wasn’t sure.

Outside the window, the market was winding down after another day of work, the square bursting with evening activity, the musicians playing on the platform in the middle. But Beau sighed, the spirit of festivity slipping down her neck into an unpleasant nicety she didn’t agree to feel, and walked outside the library.

Maybe Tubo would have agreed to go grab a drink and wind down for a change.

  
  


* * *

Jennah swallowed the last of the firewater shot and dropped the glass on the counter. That’s what happened when Tubo didn’t agree, however.

“Beauregard, tomorrow’s my off day and I’m going to spend it in a hungover because of you.”

Beau poured her another one. “Not if I can help it.”

“But I’ve just finished this!”

“A hungover’s nothing that alcohol can’t fix, Jennah,” she sang, and slid the glass towards her.

Jennah kicked her feet to the floor but grabbed the glass and downed it. Beau remembered the first time she met Jennah - or more like, got scolded by Jennah for being absolutely chaos in the hall at 2 in the morning. And even back then, she showed up with her glasses on and dressed like she had not been sleeping just shortly before that.

Beau was scared of anyone who looked like their lives were that in order for no reason in particular, but she was. Which was probably why she was trying to get Jennah as hammered as a hot piece of iron on an anvil.

The door opening bell rang and she turned around. And froze on the stop. Blue tiefling girl - Jester - had just entered the inn, followed by that same enormous minotaur in high end clothing.

Beau turned to the counter and her drink, pushing her head in her shoulders. Jennah was shouting bloody murder at the inn keeper for a refill. Beau stood up and dropped a few coins in front of Jennah.

“This my tab and hers,” she snapped.

Jennah coughed mid sip and slammed the glass on the counter. “Hey, Beauregard, where do you think you’re going?”

“Home.”

“But who’s gonna take me home? I don’t even think I can walk.”

Another impressive trait of drunk Jennah was how coherent she actually was when she shouldn’t have been. Which made for great conversation, but not that evening.

“You’ll be fine, you can ask Wessek to take you home, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

“You’re no fun, Beauregard.”

Beau huffed and gave her a half salut, before turning around and walking towards the door. Which didn’t happen, because Beau found herself standing just a palm away from _the blue tiefling girl_. And Beau jumped from the surprise and saw the blue tiefling’s face starting to tower over head, as she fell on her back and onto the floor. The whole inn turned silent at the sound, and then a roar of laughter filled the air.

Jennah pointed at her and laughed. “Beau, that’s not the kind of leaving I was imagining you would do.”

Beau gave a long, deep sigh.

“Oh, I know you,” Jester quipped, and gave her a smile and a child-like hand wave.

Beau raised her head and blinked. How did this girl manage to just _run into her_?

“Uh, do I know you?” Beau swallowed and lied.

Jester cocked her head to the side and then _grinned_. “I believe so, but if lying makes you feel better about it, then go ahead.”

The well dressed minotaur walked to the blue tiefling side and looked at Beau and then to the girl. “Jester, everything okay?”

“Oh yes, Bluude, don’t worry!” Jester said and then she lowered her arm and hand towards Beau. “Need a hand getting up?”

“No,” Beau deadpanned and she stood up, avoiding the blue tiefling’s hand. “I’m good, thanks.”

The blue tiefling dropped the hand and gave her a smile, but Beau didn’t miss the uncertainty in her voice. “How - how’s your leg?”

Beau didn’t think she would remember. She looked at Jennah, who was observing the scene with a stare that was much too clear for a normal drunk individual.

She looked back at the blue tiefling. “Uh, it’s okay,” and she lifted the foot from the ground and let the leg move back and forth from the knee down.

“I’m glad,” the blue tiefling said, and then slapped a hand on Beau’s shoulder. “So, what can I drink here?”

Beau’s eyebrows shot up. “You?”

“Yeah, me! I’m new in the city, and I’m trying to get a feel of the place. Oh, and this,” she pointed with a thumb at the well dressed minotaur, “is Bluude.”

Beau had to admit, the names fit both of them. Jester looked and felt like a person who would just drop a bomb on you when you least expected it. And Bluude was, well - Bluude.

She slumped on the chair near the counter and raised a hand to Claudia.

“Some milk for the sheltered one here - what’s your name again?”

Claudia didn’t even turn around. “Coming.”

Jester sat next to her and gives her a slap on the shoulder. “No, no, a real drink! Hey, sorry, what’s the least strong alcohol you got? And my name’s Jester, don’t you remember?”

Bluude sat next to Jester and chuckled. “Get the girl some ale, please. I will have two firewater shot.”

“I’ll have what he’s having,” Beau ordered. “And no, I don’t really recall,” she lied.

Jester jumped up and down on her chair. “This place smells like - alcohol.”

“Surprising,” Beau said in a monotone voice.

“It is, considered I was expecting it to smell more like sweat _and_ alcohol. But no sweat so far.”

Beau huffed and turned to her. “Honestly, when was the last time you spent a night out?”

Jester gave Bluude a push as he started to chuckle. “I go out.”

Beau grabbed the shots Claudia served her and hummed. “You go out.”

“Yes. I go out plenty, just not in this city.”

“Oh, I see,” said Beau and threw a shot down her throat. Her voice now sounded like a burned wood. “Everything’s the same when you’re too drunk to know where that is.”

Jester showed Beau the tongue, then grabbed the pint of ale Claudia handed her and thanked the woman. She took a big gulp and slammed the pint down, coughing.

“Bluude, why do you say this even tastes good?”

Bluude gave a big booming laugh after taking a shot. “You usually don’t like it right away.”

Jester coughed some more and then wiped her eyes dry from the effort. Beau didn’t expect nothing less, but Jester felt familiar. But not in the way someone feels familiar when you’ve known them for a long time, or in the way you see a known face in the streets and call out to them after taking a hot second trying to remember why you know that person in the first place. Beau felt the familiarity of times gone by, of an innocence she felt she hadn’t possessed in a long time. Or that maybe, just maybe, she never really had the privilege of feeling in the first place. Beau poured the second shot into her still burning mouth.

“Well, it was weird meeting you,” Beau said and stood up from the chair. “See you around.”

“Wait, wait,” Jester grabbed her arm. “I have a very serious question. Super important.”

Beau sighed and stopped. She turned to Jester. “Which is?”

“Is your full name actually _Beauregard_?”

“See ya, Jester,” and she walked off and out of the door.

But she shook her head in disbelief as she did so, a small smile threatening to break out on her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love these two SO MUCH.
> 
> Please let me know if you liked it and if you're enjoying the story so far.

**Author's Note:**

> Writing a lot these days, and I LOVE these two way too much to not write about them. I enjoyed the idea of them meeting as just common people in Zadash and see what would happen from there. So I guess we'll see how that goes together!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this and will let me know what you think. Until next time!
> 
> P.S. Rating might change in the future.


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